And the "Journey" continues...

When I started this year out and chose "journey" as my word, I had no idea exactly what kind of journey I was going to go on!  First of all, I honestly entered January with no plans to be pregnant.  My thoughts (and a few conversations) were... depending on how this year goes, I may be willing to start trying in January of 2014.  Now, I will likely be having my baby in January of 2014.  No.  It wasn't a surprise.  It happened much like it did with Olivia. Overnight I suddenly decided I was ready.  Michael and I had a conversation about how "no time will ever be perfect".  We slept on the thought and the next day threw our hands up in the air and said, "why not?".  I never got another period.  I don't chart or take my temperature or anything like that--so with both pregnancies I can't really say it "happened on the first try", but it basically happened on the first cycle.  Likely somewhere in the first week of trying.  Apparently we are very fertile!

Well that little piece of knowledge led us down another path.  We were quickly approaching the end of our lease and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we did not want to stay at our current location.  I already explained that due to our rental property in Ohio, a home loan wasn't looking likely.  As each door closed, we once again turned back to the conversation we have had a dozen times over the last year.  Do we move back?  Michael has always been ready to move back.  It has been me saying, "But you finally have a job you love!".  I don't know about you--but being married to someone who loves their job verses being married to someone who loathes their job can make a HUGE difference.  I've lived through both seasons.  But this time around my heart was slowly changing.  Michael made the comment that all of the reason why would should/could move back were starting to outweigh the one thing keeping us here.  His job.  For whatever reason that really sunk in.  We started praying about it (once again), making pro and con lists, and talking about all of the different possibilities.  Things just started falling into place and we knew that now was the time to move back.

There are honestly many, many reasons why we are choosing to make the move.  We LOVE Texas, but what it boils down to is the fact that we want our children to grow up around family and some of our life long friends.

So, in two and a half weeks we will be packing up our belongings and making the journey back home.

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The facts:

• Michael will be keeping his job.  When his bosses found out that he was going to move back, they called him into their office and basically said, "We don't want to lose you.  So if you want to keep your job, we'll do whatever it takes to make it work."  He will be working from home in Ohio.  This was a big piece to the puzzle, and we are so glad that it was all able to work out.

• We are planning on leaving on the 24th.  Michael needs to be in the actual office here until the 23rd because his boss is going to be out of town.  Our lease is up on the 26th.  So regardless, we are moving that weekend.  We are hoping to pull out mid day on the 24th, drive part way, and then arrive sometime on the evening of the 25th.  Michael can use the 26th to settle and get his computers up and running and then start work the next day.  We don't want him to miss too much work.

• We are packing things up ourselves and have been working on it for a few weeks now.  We are planning on hiring movers to load, drive and unload our stuff.  We are hoping to sell Michael's car before we leave, and then we can all drive together in one car.  This will make things much easier with having Olivia in the car for 18+ hours.  Plus, he won't need the car if he's working from home.

• We will be moving in with his mom to start.  We will likely stay until after the baby is born (and then probably after the weather calms down), because I don't want to have to move twice in one pregnancy.  We are choosing to stay with her for various reasons--1) we are going to have the same home loan issues as we did here.  We need our renter to be in our place for a little longer. 2) it will save us money. 3) if I get put on bed rest again, we will have a little help with Olivia. 4) we don't want to be moving in and out of apartments and places for the next few year and we honestly didn't even have enough time to find a place once we decided on the move. 5) in the short term it will just be easier! :)

I think that pretty much sums it up.  I am finally past the point where I feel nauseous all day, so I'm trying to get stuff packed and ready.  I'm still tired all of the time though.  We did have a garage sale last weekend and made $270, so that was nice.  What didn't sell got taken directly to Goodwill.